Summary

The report, Give Me Shelter, suggests housing policy has, for the past two decades, lacked a guiding philosophy or even an understanding of future housing needs or what housing programmes are supposed to achieve.

A significant concern is that there appears to have been little consideration of future social housing need, particularly scant evidence of planning for social housing demand over the next 10-20 years.

The report’s author Salvation Army policy analyst Alan Johnnson says in the past housing was critical to the country’s nation building. It improved living standards and was a method of creating a more inclusive society. Today, such a broad vision is lacking, he says.

The report looks specifically at the two main housing assistance programmes – the accommodation supplement and subsidies paid by the state to Housing New Zealand – and offers a framework of how developing a sustainable and effective housing policy might be achieved.